


a good enough reason

by rjosettes



Series: Salem Academy of Sorcery [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/F, F/M, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5116190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allison never feels quite so peaceful on campus as she does here. There are some nice, quiet spots in the woods where she can practice with her bow without being harassed, but nothing beats this: the gentle slosh of the warm water all around her as she floats or the world blocked out when she dives deep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a good enough reason

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the shared 'verse (with many ships and characters) I'm working on with my girlfriend! Check the collection for more.

Allison never feels quite so peaceful on campus as she does here. There are some nice, quiet spots in the woods where she can practice with her bow without being harassed, but nothing beats this: the gentle slosh of the warm water all around her as she floats or the world blocked out when she dives deep. Everything is muted, less in a way that’s easier to manage for a little while.

 

A hand skims along the line of her spine beneath the water and she comes splashing up, gasping though her mouth’s been in the open air all this time. She rubs away the water she’s gotten in her eyes, silently thanking magic for clean, unchlorinated pools. Before her vision’s clear, though, she knows exactly who she’s dealing with. “Jackson,” she chastises him, blinking away the last few drops caught on her eyelashes. “If you drown me, your team gets worse.”

“And I’d look even better,” he teases, grinning at her. “No skin off my nose if the girls’ relay gets slower.” His hand’s at her back again though, warm against bare skin, and she’s not sure whether to move toward him or press back into his touch. She bites her lip and checks the water and the bleachers, the doors to the locker rooms. They’re alone. “How long have you been here?”

 

She checks her watch, switching it from the stopwatch mode she’d been using earlier to the time. “Um. An hour?” She wiggles her wrinkly fingers, scrunching up her nose. “I finished my laps and just sort of…stayed.” It’s not the first and won’t be the last time, and Jackson gets that, she thinks. Less bacause he needs the alone time and more because he takes practice makes perfect to the extreme. “I left my phone in my locker, sorry if I missed a call.”

 

“I figured you were either here or with Lydia.” His smile turns to a smirk and she knows he’s trying to make her blush, so she fights it down. “And I’d rather come here and swim than interrupt anything.”

 

Her first instinct is to splash him right in his smug face, so she does, giggling when he splutters. The sound echos up around the high ceiling, clear as a bell. This huge, bright place is all theirs for the moment and Allison has never felt so clean, the huge weight she carries around the rest of this place lifted from her shoulders. Jackson doesn’t think of her as an Argent. He’s not tiptoeing around her. He splashes her back before he tries to dunk her, wiggling fingers going for her sides when he fails, tickling her until her feet kick out and they go down together, swallowing water with their laughing mouths.

 

He kisses her when they come up for air and even though they’ve only done this a few handfuls of times, she thinks she’s getting a feel for it. Jackson’s mouth is softer and wider than hers, plush like Lydia’s. They look alike to her sometimes, the pair of them, especially in public when they’ve got their ice royalty faces on, smiling but not welcoming. Maybe it’s something like those studies where people look like their pets, or old couples mirror each other’s faces. Lydia and Jackson have been a set for as long as they can remember, and Allison had known from moment one. She’d almost thought they were dating, until Jackson started doing this with her, lips parted and arms around her, making her feel wanted here for once.

 

“So,” he mumbles against her mouth, and Allison tenses. ‘So’ hasn’t been a very good lead-in for her these past few years. “Did you go see Lydia today? It’s been a while.”

 

“Did you?” She drops her arms, wades back a stroke or two until she’s not quite out of reach. “You’re her best friend.” Allison isn’t entertaining any illusions. Lydia tolerates her as long as she smiles pretty and makes their circle look a little dangerous. Maybe they’re all straight A, squeaky clean kids with a bark far worse than their bite, but now they’re all wild enough to run with a witch hunter. Never mind that she’s a witch herself, just like the rest of them. “I’m sure she doesn’t want me in her room right now.”

 

She squirms on the spot when Jackson only laughs at her. “Why? I promise you, she’s not having some kind of bisexual crisis. Lydia’s into anyone who’ll make a pretty accessory. You definitely fit.” He reaches to tug at the ends of her hair, straight from the weight of the water. “Besides, she’s completed her inner circle. Blonde, brunette, redhead.”

 

Allison waves off the joke, rolling her eyes. Lydia’s roommate is a brunette and a Hale; if she were building herself a perfect clique, Cora would’ve been an optimal choice. “Maybe I’m not worried about how Lydia is reacting to this,” she admits, dropping her chin to hide from the look she knows is coming. No one could ever argue that Jackson doesn’t belong in Eberhardt. He reads her like a book more often than not, and he’s even better at turning on whatever emotion will suit his purposes. He’s gentle now, almost concerned, tipping her face up. It feels genuine, so she can’t bring herself to mind.

 

“Are you saying you didn’t like it?”

 

“It was awkward. I don’t really like thinking about it.”

 

“It looks like you like thinking about it a little too much.” She meets his eyes unwillingly, only because she has no clue what he’s getting at until she follows his gaze to her chest.

 

“Oh my god.” She crosses her arms over her bikini top defensively, and the flush she’d battled so hard earlier rises. “The water is warm and the air is cold.” She nearly points out that his nipples are just as perky as hers, and right out in the open, but something tells her he’d make even more of a joke of that. Maybe he likes this idea, and that’s why he’s pushing it. “If it’s such a big deal, I’ll go see her when I leave.”

 

His grin means that’s all he was negotiating himself down to in the first place, though she’s still not sure why.

 

Walking into Lydia’s room is always a little confusing. The wrought iron frame of her bed and the floral bedspread in decidedly non-Meriwether colors looks like something out a homes and gardens magazine, not a dormitory. Cora’s side of the tiny place, in contrast, looks exactly like it probably did the day she moved in, minus the triskele hung above her bed and the already overflowing hamper in the corner. She’s surprised Lydia hasn’t placed a warning sticky note on the sock draped over its side. 'Please handle this situation.’ Snippy and to the point.

 

Lydia is cross-legged on her bedspread with a hot pink lap desk balanced on her knees, painting her nails. She beckons Allison closer with her head. “Sorry I couldn’t come to the door. The wards will always let you in, just so you know. They’re tuned to you, Jackson, Danny, and Derek. For his sister, obviously.” There’s a certain heat to her tone when she references her roommate, and Allison remembers how relieved she is to have a roommate with no magic in their family. She’s heard rumors by now, surely, but she has no reason to be afraid of Allison – no real knowledge of her grandfather or, worse, her aunt Kate. “Don’t sit on the bed; you’ll drip.”

 

Threading her fingers through the roots of her barely-damp hair, she focuses on that summer in Arizona – hot and dry, parching every part of her. It takes a few sweeps, her fingers tangling in tiny knots, but the moisture disappears. She’s a fast learner, and just a few months in Charms has helped a lot. Lydia watches her as she carefully perches at the foot of the bed, trying not to disturb the bottle of nail polish or Lydia’s steady hands. “Jackson told me to come see you,” she begins, because it isn’t really a fib, and she’s slowly learning to play the two of them against each other herself. Remington or not, this is high school, and it takes a certain kind of people sense. “He said I’d waited too long.”

 

Lydia tilts her head back in exhaustion in lieu of rolling her eyes. “You don’t have to do what he says just because you’re his girlfriend, you know. Even if he thinks so. Why do you think I never dated him?”

 

Allison can feel her heart skip a beat. “That’s all? That you didn’t want to be bossed around.”

 

The breath Lydia blows over her hands is magic that Allison can feel, hardening the flawless layer of polish on her nails. She calmly picks up her next bottle, laying a stencil across her thumb to create her chevron. “And he’s clingy. I prefer my attention spread out a little more.” Her glance tries to communicate something Allison can’t quite pick up on – unless, of course, she’s suggesting the same thing Jackson seems to be when he gets cryptic. “I suppose I could put up with it, if I had a good enough reason.”

 

It’s quiet for a while, Allison watching the delicate work of Lydia’s small hands. She thinks for a moment what her family would do, ignoring the voice that says they’d retch at the idea of Allison seeing even Jackson. But her family is brave, and they say what they mean when it benefits them. “Am I a good enough reason?”

 

Lydia looks up for no more than a second, expression blank but eyes twinkling, before she returns to her nails. It isn’t much, but maybe Lydia does more than tolerate her after all.


End file.
